Ember
by LadyBird
Summary: Perhaps Baron Battle had a sidekick. Warning for OC OCs, really . This ficlet is just something I wrote for myself as the "Thaumic Resonance" backstory.


**Disclaimer: **Not mine

**Fandom:**Sky High

**Pairing:** None

**Rating:** K

**Summary:** If Baron Battle was once a hero, hed had to have a side-kich, right? So…

**A/N**: I've said somewhere that the movie leaves me with the impression that Baron Battle is a hero gone bad not a villain from the start. And if so, then** - a**lmost every hero has a sidekick, right? So Baron Battle had to have one, too. Who was that? What became of his sidekick?

After all, the relationship between the Commander nad All American Boy does not have to be the only possible hero – hero-support relationship variation, right?

It was easy to imagine a sidekick, all big eyes and full of hero-worship towards her hero, dedicated and earnest and caring… Well, that's Ember.

**A/N2:** I'm trying to get back into writing the sequel for TR, so I typed and now post this little ficlet that I wrote for myself for the TR background.

**Ember**

Ember is a sidekick. But she is a sidekick to one of the greatest heroes in existence (in her opinion) Baron Battle. Or Michel Peace, the young but already rather renown architect, in civilian life.

Ember does her best to be a perfect sidekick. She thinks it's not arrogance to say that she almost succeeds. Their equipment is always in order and works without glitches when needed. She keeps up with all the new developments in the field ("the field" would be hero-support). She gets all the information her hero needs quickly and efficiently. She is also a good decoy if needed, drawing a villain's attention so her hero can do his work.

When Michel Peace marries Ember is the best man. Well, best woman. She's deliriously happy. She is also godmother to Michael's son, Warren. She likes to baby-sit Warren.

But she can't replace his wife and she can't replace Warren's mother. She doesn't want to, because that's Helen's job. And Ember likes Helen, really, she does. It's that just… Helen is never around.

Ember tries her best to fulfill the silence in the Peaces' household when Helen Peace is once again away somewhere doing her hero-work. Helen has important work. People need her. But her family needs her, too. And Ember, despite being the perfect sidekick and doing everything in her power to make her hero happy, can do nothing to make Helen stay at home. She has tried talking to Helen, several times, but all she ever gets in answer is: "But people need me!" Which is totally true.

So Ember does not scream: "But your family needs you also!" although she sometimes wants to, very much.

Instead she visits every day. She talks, she jokes, she sings, she plays – and in time does homework – with Warren. She cooks, sometimes. Does washing up when needed (not often, because Michael Peace is usually very good at doing housework – he has to be – just there are times when Ember comes and finds Michael sitting and staring at nothing and the house is cold and dark and dirty laundry is piling up and there's nothing in the kitchen and Warren is hiding in his room – on days like these Ember is the one to do all the things that are needed to get the Peaces' life in order again… Luckily that does not happen often).

But everything Ember does is still not enough. Because she is not Helen.

Perhaps Ember might be enough if she were in love with her hero. Perhaps things might be different if it wasn't Helen Michael married. Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

But while Ember adores her hero she never considers trying to take his wife's place. Perhaps she should have. Who can say?

Ember is a perfect sidekick, but in the end she fails.

Still, Ember is lucky enough never to know she has failed.

* * *

When for Michael Peace the light fades and the world turns into a tapestry of shadows and flame Ember is the first to die. 

She never knows who kills her. There is just a presence behind her and then an impossibly strong pain for blessedly short moments. And then…nothing.

If Ember had known who killed her and what became of her hero later, she would have considered dying this way mercy. Baron Battle does. This is perhaps the only mercy he ever shows.


End file.
